The Mists of Summerhall
by mystripedskirt
Summary: In which Arya is a High Priestess of the Old Religion and Aegon is King Stag. MZB rewrite, AU Aegon/Arya Aegon/Sansa Garlan/Arya Mace/Arya Trystane/Sansa


When Arya is eleven years old, her aunt, the high priestess Lyanna, arrives at Winterfell.

"Ned," Lyanna prods, "The old gods are our gods. You have allowed septas to teach your daughters, but the old gods require one of their own. I have no daughter to give over to their service, but you have two."

Ned Stark allows his sister to take Arya to Braavos, where she is trained as a priestess of the Old Religion.

"I will treat her like my own," Lyanna promises.

Starks don't break promises.

* * *

During the next few years of her life, Arya becomes aware of the rising tension between the old gods and the new.

Having been raised in both faiths, her mother Catelyn having been southron, she finds it difficult to conceive that others do not understand the intermingling of religions.

"Arya, sweetling," Lyanna gently reminds her, "The new gods are the reappearance of the old gods with new faces. While we are wise and know this to be true, the followers of the Seven want to push the old faces out of sight."

After seven years of training, Arya is initiated as a priestess of the Old Religion, and Lyanna begins grooming her as the next Lady of Braavos.

* * *

Some months after her initiation, Arya is given in a fertility rite to the future high king of Westeros.

Clothed only in cloth of gold and a tiny circlet on her head, she comes to the sacred field to wait for her new king.

It is a dance.

And like all dances, graceful and smooth, Arya easily finds her rhythm.

Her king is unrecognizable to her, having been covered in the blood of the stag he killed in sacred ritual.

The following morning, when they wake, the king lazily opens his eyes to gaze at her. "Thank you, my lady. I will love and cherish you always, because you were my first."

She smiles and begins to respond, but then they finally recognize each other.

"Arya?"

"Aegon?

Arya is horrified to realize that she has slept with her sister's betrothed.

Two months later, Arya is devastated to find out she is pregnant.

* * *

After Rhaegar dies in battle against the Stormlord invaders, Aegon claims the throne of Westeros despite questions about his legitimacy.

He has a crown reforged in the image of Aegon the Conqueror's.

The black metal is heavy and ruthless on his head, weighed down by endless rubies, but the weight of the crown is nothing compared to the weight of rule.

Since Aegon must now defend the Crownlands against the Stormlord invaders, Lyanna has Arya make him an enchanted scabbard that will prevent him from losing blood and gives him the sacred sword Blackfyre.

With the combined force of Braavos and King's Landing, Aegon repels the invaders.

* * *

As Arya's unborn child grows within her, so do her feelings of anger and betrayal toward Lyanna, who she believes tricked her into bearing a child to her sister's betrothed.

Arya asks Lyanna, "Did you know?"

"He is the high king. You are to be the next Lady of Braavos. It was foretold."

Unable to stay in Braavos any longer, Arya leaves for the court of her aunt Lysa, queen of the Vale, where she bears her son, naming him Torrhen.

Spurred by her husband Jon's ambition and her own, Lysa tricks Arya into allowing her to rear her son.

Arya leaves the Eyrie and returns to Aegon's court as a lady-in-waiting to the high queen, her sister Sansa.

* * *

When Sansa fails to produce an heir, she is convinced the Seven are punishing her for her sins.

Chiefest among them are her failure to persuade Aegon to outlaw prayers to the old gods and her forbidden love for Trystane, Aegon's cousin and finest knight.

Although Trystane reciprocates Sansa's love, he is also Aegon's best friend and an honorable man.

She prays to the Seven every night. "Mother, be merciful. Let me give Aegon a son. Warrior, keep him safe in battle. Stranger, do not take him from me."

* * *

On the eve of a decisive battle against the Stormlands, Sansa prevails upon Aegon to put aside his father's dragon banner and replace it with the Faith's seven-pointed star.

As her religious fanaticism grows, relations between Braavos and King's Landing grow strained.

In her desperation over her failure to carry a child to term, she asks Arya for help, threatening to have an extramarital affair so she can become pregnant.

In an attempt to keep Sansa from doing so, Arya reveals that Aegon already has a son, though he does not know it.

* * *

After the battle, Aegon moves his court to the newly rebuilt Summerhall.

What was once in ruins is built anew.

Seeking to free both Trystane and Sansa from the forbidden love that traps them both, Arya tricks Trystane into marrying her cousin, Roslin Tully.

In the shadowed light of the moon, Roslin almost looks like Sansa.

* * *

Some time later, during a heated argument with Aegon over their lack of an heir, Sansa breaks Arya's confidence and tells Aegon he has a son.

In growing suspicion and horror, Aegon summons Arya and orders her to tell him the truth. Arya obeys.

"Arya, I must meet my son."

"You cannot think to bring him here. He has the look of me."

With a smile that grows even rarer in the coming days, Aegon only responds, "Then at least I know he is handsome."

* * *

Now believing that the lack of a royal heir is the Seven's punishment for Arthur's union, however unwitting, with her own sister, Sansa urges Aegon to confess the encounter to the septon, who imposes strict penance upon him.

Then she and Aegon arrange for Arya to marry into the Reach, far from Summerhall.

But because of a misunderstanding, Arya, who had thought she would be marrying the king's younger son Garlan, a warrior and follower of the old gods, finds herself betrothed to King Mace Tyrell, who is old enough to be her grandfather.

Sansa's treachery leads to many unhappy years for all.

Aegon yearns to meet his son Torrhen and perhaps foster him at Summerhall, but each time he brings up the subject with Sansa, she refuses to discuss it.

* * *

Arya marries Mace and moves to the Reach, but in time begins an affair with Garlan.

The Children of the Forest, who keep to the old ways, regard Garlan and Arya as their king and queen.

King Mace suspects nothing, but Garlan's older brother, Willas, begins to.

At one point, he confronts Arya in private and tries to blackmail her into sleeping with him as well.

"Why are you so unwilling, mother?" Willas taunts. "You seem eager enough to share dear Garlan's bed."

Arya sends Willas out on an boar hunt and is magically present when the boar kills him.

Arya tells Garlan, who is now Mace's heir, of the sacred marriage she made with Aegon years before.

To her surprise and regret, he does not appear disgusted with her.

She adds that they must take the kingdom back from Aegon and the Seven and bring it back under the sway of Braavos.

The attempted coup fails and Aegon kills Garlan in single combat.

As Mace recovers from the shock of losing a second son, Arya leaves the Reach forever.

* * *

Torrhen, now grown, goes to the Stormlands to learn warfare far from Aegon's eyes.

Years later at Summerhall, he introduces himself as Queen Arya's son and Queen Lysa's foster son, though he calls Queen Lysa "Mother" and Arya by her name.

Trystane makes Torrhen a knight of Westeros.

* * *

When the knights leave to search for the fabled ruins of Valyria, Torrhen attempts to usurp the throne.

It does not end well.

In a climactic battle, the armies of Aegon and Torrhen fight and Aegon is mortally wounded.

* * *

Arya takes the dying Aegon through the mists to Braavos, reassuring him that he did not fail in his attempt to save Westeros from the approaching dark times.

Aegon whispers, "I'm sorry for everything."

He pauses, as if unsure, but he eventually continues, "I loved you first."

Aegon dies in her arms as the shoreline comes into view.

"I know," she whispers back, to no one in particular.


End file.
